Flash, DHTML and Rich Media! Cool technologies, how about integrating all three to create an immersive experience for the site visitor?

Meet Eddie Traversa, exceptional not only for his extensive skills and knowledge in all three areas, but for his willingness to share the tricks of the trade with others..

Name: Eddie John Traversa
Country: Australia
URL: http://nirvana.media3.net

Education: B.A (with distinction), Grad.Dip.App.Psych, MA (counselling), PhD in progress.
Favourite Technology: DVD Players
Favourite Software: Bryce 4 and Fireworks 3
Favorite Food: Lasagne
Favorite Drink: Scotch, the expensive kind.
Worst Moment On The Web: Anytime my ISP wont let me connect to the net.
Best Moment On The Web: When someone told me that I inspired them enough to go out and spend a fortune on software.
Biggest Influence on the Web: Without a doubt, Jeff Rouyer heavily influences my work.
Current Project: finishing Jim Dandy and working on a second version of Nirvana.
Awards: Netscape Whats Cool, Visual FX site of the week, Internet Brothers Elite site award and a bunch more.
Tools Used: Software: Homesite 4.5 Fireworks 3. Bryce 4 Poser 4 Truespace 4 Max 3D Photoshop Win 98
Hardware: Pentium 111 600 Matrox Millennium G400 dual head card 32 megs. Twin Hard drives, 18 gigabyte and a 9 gigabyte 128 megs of ram. I need more!! Creative Labs Sound Card 56k modem.

Fascination with the web:
My reason for being so attracted to the web is the enormous creative potential it offers. Believe it or not I am still at stick figure stage in terms of drawing in real life, so the web to me is a terrific creative outlet and allows me to explore another dimension of self. Forever the psychologist aren't I :)

From my perspective, what I try and do with my work is to shift people away from two dimensional flat interfaces and to begin to think in four dimensional planes. I think it is uncharted territory with perhaps Jeff Rouyer leading the way in this regard.

My current interest is in integrating flash and dhtml as there has not been a lot done in this regard. Unfortunately to date the browsers have not been to user friendly in this regard, but with IE5 being released and at some stage NS6 (whatever they are calling it these days) being released, I think in the years to come we will see more of these types of sites. That is what Jim Dandy is about, an experiment in integration of Flash and DHTML.

For me personally, my own challenge for this year is to come up with a few different styles in terms of interfaces. I got bored very easily, so if I don't push myself to explore new ground, I quickly lose interest.

Currently, I have been playing around a lot with Bryce and trying new techniques in that program with some interesting results, which I hope to expose at some stage later in the year.

Like most of us I am keen to explore uncharted waters and hope that I can encourage others to do the same.

Coolmaps is very pleased to welcome Eddie Traversa to the team. Visit Eddie's DHTML/Flash/Media Nirvana site or drop him an email to say Hi!